Book of Secrets
by Medieval Scribe
Summary: Djaq reads Lambert's ledger and hopes to learn its secrets. One shot written for femgenficathon at Livejournal.


Djaq gets up quietly, casting wary eyes over her companions who are still asleep despite the breaking of dawn. Lambert's ledger is no longer warm from its brief encounter with the campfire, but the knowledge, its hidden secrets, burn her as if the book is still ablaze. She has to know.

She slides the ledger out of its hiding place, feeling the nubby leather under her fingertips. Guilt wars with curiosity and her hand stills as she tries to open the book. She looks up and green eyes, sharp with reproach, meet hers across the clearing. Will regards her for a moment, and then turns away, conceding the argument at least for the moment. Djaq sighs in relief. _Someday you will understand, my friend. You all will._

She tucks the book under her arm and sets off, her boots hoisted over one shoulder to make less noise as she leaves the camp. It is still early, and though the others are beginning to stir, it will be a while before they are awake enough to ask questions. "I am off to wash and pray," she calls out, as added insurance against the curiosity of her fellow outlaws.

When she gets to the stream a half-mile from camp, the ledger is the only thing on her mind, and she is bouncing with anticipation. But she remembers the importance of patience, and with great effort, she strips down to her underthings and slips into the water, washing away the sleepy cobwebs in her brain. She kneels down and faces the direction of her homeland, the rising sun her compass marker for the east. But today, the usual liturgy, the music of her faith, does not come easily and after a moment, Djaq abandons the ritual. Instead, she sends up a silent _duā_ to Allah, a plea for His forgiveness in case learning the secrets of the ledger is against His wishes.

Her morning ablutions done, she finally sits at the edge of the stream and cracks open the ledger. Lambert had hidden it in a barrel of water, but to Djaq's surprise, the parchment is not water-logged and the ink on the pages is intact. She marvels at Lambert's foresight, for the parchment is sealed with some sort of wax that keeps the elements at bay. She chuckles at this sign of his cleverness but immediately adopts a more somber expression, remembering the ledger contains Lambert's greatest work, something he has given his life to protect.

She runs a finger over the first line in the ledger: _solve et coagula_—separate and join together. It is the alchemist's dictum, and she remembers it well from her own lessons. She smiles and turns the page, her heart warming at the sight of familiar symbols and runes. Soon Djaq is engrossed in her task, puzzling out Lambert's formula and trying to decipher his coded notes for his results. But after a couple of hours, some of the book's mysteries elude her and exhaustion and sleep take over as she dozes off with a finger still lodged safely in the ledger.

***

_Alif, bā, tā, thā, jeem…_

These are the sounds of her first memories, of when she was Saffiyah and her whole life lay before her, as vast and pure as the desert itself. Her mother is her first teacher, her lilting voice sounding out each letter to the two chubby imps at her feet. Her brother Djaq does not pay much attention, his focus entirely on the wooden carts and soldiers made especially for him. But Saffiyah likes to hear her mother's voice, so she throws her tiny arms around her mother's neck and whispers, "More, _ummi_." Her mother laughs, and later, when the rest of the house slumbers through the afternoon heat, she teaches little Saffiyah how to make the shapes of letters in the sand. She helps wrap her daughter's chubby fingers around a twig and they practice for long hours, writing, erasing and writing again until Djaq realizes he's being left out of the game and scuffs all of Saffiyah's hard work with his feet.

Saffiyah and Djaq are barely six years old when their mother dies, and they are put in the care of Fatima, a distant kinswoman who believes in rules and ritual. She coddles the children, makes sure they have the best of everything, but she clucks her tongue at Saffiyah's curiosity, warning her that a girl only needs to have enough learning to glorify Allah. Still, little Saffiyah will not be thwarted, and when nobody is watching, she leans her head against the door to Djaq's rooms and eavesdrops on his lessons.

_Waheid, ithnein, talatha, arba'a, khamsa…_

Djaq's first lessons in mathematics are simple number puzzles, and Saffiyah wonders at this, because they have both known their numbers since they were only babes. She is disappointed, and for a time, she allows Fatima to teach her other things, pursuits more suited to a girl of wealth and privilege. She learns to be coy in public, always judging people's behavior by the movement of their feet and hands. She learns to tilt her head just so as she listens to another conversation, a mark of polite and studied indifference. But inwardly, she longs to know the things Fatima cannot teach her. Why is the sun only seen during the day? What are the stars made of? Is a man's blood just the same as a woman's? How does the mason know the wall must be _so_ tall and _so_ thick?

The only person she can go to for answers is Djaq. She sneaks into his room and asks him about his lessons. He's puzzled at first, but later imitates his _mua'lim_—the old scholar their father has hired to tutor him—to perfection, making a great show out of it. Saffiyah giggles and claps at all the right places, careful to hide her excitement at the strange sounds and lyrical names she has never heard before…Euclid, Pythagoras, the golden proportion. She is stunned to learn the world is full of circles and triangles and rectangles, and that _everything_ can be described with just a few numbers. She pesters Djaq to let her see his books. He is skeptical at first, but after a few weeks, he relents, sneaking the books into her sewing basket, and adding that he's happy at least one of them actually likes the lessons.

_Earth, water, fire, air…_

Somehow—it seems to happen overnight—Djaq grows into a man. The laughing little boy is replaced by a serious scholar, one interested in politics, the law and religion. He no longer shares his lessons with Saffiyah, admonishing her instead to be modest and obedient. She is forced to learn in hiding, and takes to sneaking around the house at night, slipping in and out of Djaq's rooms with his scrolls, stealing ink and parchment from her father's study.

Her brother's new _mua'lim_ is a man named Bassam. He is an old friend of their maternal uncle, and though he is a bird handler by trade, he is also a well-known scholar and alchemist. She leans against the door to Djaq's rooms, listening to the man speak of the elements, how everything in the world is made of these four things, and how all things can be changed into all other things. She is utterly fascinated and desperate to learn as much as she can. One night, as she is sitting on the floor of her father's study, poring over one of Bassam's treatises, with only a candle for light, she is found out. Bassam chastises her and sends her back to her rooms. Saffiyah is beside herself and spends much of the next few days in her bed, crying. But when she finally emerges, she is pleasantly surprised to discover a roll of fresh parchment, a new well of ink and a thin, leather-bound volume of ibn Hayyān's _Theory of the Elements_. She begins to think of Bassam as her greatest ally.

_Humors, tumors, organs, life force…_

It is not long before the first in a long line of suitors begin appearing in her life. Saffiyah is unfailingly polite to all of them, careful not to anger Fatima or disappoint her father. The men—these self-styled suitors—are wealthy, aristocratic men from patrician families, and Saffiyah is certain she will willingly marry one of them one day. But just now, she finds them horribly dull. Only one of them even attempts to woo her with a book. He brings a slim volume of poetry, something new and vaguely scandalous, by Omar Khayyām. She thanks him politely, but when he presses her to read the verse out loud, she returns the book and laughs, telling him she's read the only work of Khayyām that matters, his treatise on algebra.

Djaq is aghast, and later, when the suitor has left in disappointment, he rails at her, reducing her to tears, and Fatima banishes Saffiyah to her rooms, isolated from her books and her treatises. But even this is not the end of her trials. Her father calls her to his infirmary, and she is certain he will scold her, perhaps send her away to a distant village. Instead, he gives her a spool of silk thread, a sharp needle and an old pillow. He says nothing, offers no words of explanation, but instead calmly shows her how to suture a wound. This is her first lesson in her father's chosen profession, and she is so taken with it, it drives all thoughts of mathematics and alchemy from her mind. She becomes her father's assistant, and though she knows she will never be a proper _tabiyb_, on account of her gender, she is grateful to her father for his immense knowledge, and for the unstinting and public way he shares it with her. She learns of bone and blood and sinew, of herbs that can save a man's life, of others that can take that life just as easily.

Her brother disapproves at first, arguing loudly with their father for this transgression, this violation of the natural order of things. But as time goes by and he sees the happiness his father and Saffiyah have found in their work, he changes his mind. He comes to the infirmary once a day to see them, to learn of their work, even as he shares his own knowledge of the world outside, the changes in Jerusalem, the rapacious greed of the infidel Christian kings. Saffiyah nods, taking it all in, and knowing she will remember this time as the best of her entire life.

Then the battle comes, and everything—earth, fire, water, air, humor, tumor, organ, life force—is gone. Mathematics, alchemy, physic, these are of no use in a world where everything is ash.

***

She wakes up, startled to find herself still at the edge of the stream. A quick glance at the sky warns her it is mid-morning and she has been gone long enough that the others will begin to worry. Djaq flips open the book to the page where her finger has rested all this while. She has not yet mastered the formula or understood what many of Lambert's runes stand for. But one ingredient at least is obvious. The formula requires copious amounts of ash, something Djaq is wholly familiar with. She laughs at the irony, until she remembers the alchemist's other dictum, learned so long ago and forgotten amid the other trials of her life: from fire comes ash, and from ash comes fire yet again. _Solve et coagula_.


End file.
